Date: Mon, 02 Dec 1996 14:47:40 GMT
Server: NCSA/1.4.2
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<TITLE>CS451 Course Intro</TITLE>
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<H1>CSE 451 <br>
Course Introduction</h1>


This is a course about the use, design, and implementation of
operating systems. My goal in teaching this course is to help you
understand:

<UL>
<LI> What is an operating system, what does it do, and 
    why do we have it.

<LI> The fundamental abstractions provided by operating systems.

<LI> The design issues and decisions that go into implementing 
  these abstractions on platforms that work.  

</UL>


<H2>Why should someone take this course?</H2> 

Have you ever considered why your PC crashes about once a day and why 
workstations don't ?   Or how programs access much more memory than there is
available physically on the machine ?  Maybe you know all these and are 
curious as to what happens "under the covers" with Windows, Unix, NT, and
other operating systems.  The operating system 
acts as a resource manager for the computer and if you want to know what 
kinds of decisions it makes and why, then this course is for you.


<H2>Who are we and what do we bring to this course?</H2> 

I'm a faculty member in the computer science department here. (Check
out my <!WA0><A
HREF="http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/bershad/index.html">home
page</A> for more details about what I do when I'm not teaching.) 
My area of research is in operating systems and their interaction with
compilers and computer architecture.
<P>

Your TA is a graduate student with the department.  Click <!WA1><a
href="http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/sungeun/">here</a> to see
your TA's homepage.



<H2>My attitude about teaching and learning</H2> 

My job is to come prepared to lecture every day, present and clarify
material that I feel is important, and guide you all through a series
of "stories" that are intended to convey the basic points of the
course. People tell me that I'm pretty good at conveying concepts and
walking through complicated material with examples and analogies.
People also tell me that I'm terrible "on-my-feet" when I have to add,
subtract, multiply, or divide, or when I need to remember where the
semicolon goes. I use slides so that I can work out those details in
advance. Nevertheless, I will make mistakes in lecture and on the
handouts. I'm grateful to anyone who can point these mistakes out.
I'll correct them as quickly as I can.  <P>

<H3>Your Job</H3>

Teaching is my responsibility. Learning is yours. There are mechanical
things that I do in order to teach effectively (example, using slides,
exams, homeworks, soliciting feedback), and there are mechanical
things that you should do to learn effectively. I can pretty much
guarantee that if you operate using a few simple guidelines you will
get a high grade in this course: <UL>

<LI> Come to lecture PREPARED. At the very least, this means having
read through the lecture notes from the previous lecture. At best, it
means having read the next relevant section in the text, begun working
on the homeworks, and have questions ready to ask.


<LI> Come to all lectures. The lectures are the course. You can't
slide by just by skimming the notes. Over the course of the quarter,
we're all likely to miss one or two lectures -- myself included. When
I miss a lecture, it is my responsibility to make sure that things
proceed as much as possible as if I were there. The same has to be
true of you; if you miss a lecture, it is your responsibility to
determine what happened and how it relates to the rest of the course.
Good resources are these web pages, and the person sitting next to
you.

<LI> Do the homeworks. I'm like you. I hate homeworks. They are as
much a pain to put together, grade, and adminster as they are to do.
If I thought we could, I'd have no homeworks at all. But, they're like
working out or running -- you do it, as painful as it is, and you
improve. The more you do, the faster you do them, etc... The homeworks
also help me to understand what you are understanding, and more
importantly, what you are not.

<LI> Tell us how things are going. Both the good and the bad. We've
created an <!WA2><A HREF="http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/451/CurrentQuarter/feedback.html">anonymous feedback page</A>
that you can use to tell us what you like and what you don't like.
Check it out for more details. Or you can just send us regular mail.
Or just come by my office.


<LI> Try to have fun.  For many of you the first programming class
that you take where you have to pull together a lot of different
concepts to make progress.  The results can be pretty impressive.  



</UL>

That's about it.  Basically, we've each got a job to do this quarter
with one another.  Let's try to make it as productive and effective as
possible. 

<P>
 
Click <!WA3><A HREF="http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/451/CurrentQuarter/syllabus.html">here</A> to go on to the actual course syllabus.

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